Ice cream for everybody

Penn Spell Bowl team enjoys state championship.

Penn Spell Bowl team enjoys state championship.

November 20, 2009|KATHERINE SANDERSON Tribune Staff Writer

Every time the team gets a perfect score, members of the Penn High School Spell Bowl team get an ice cream party. They had three this year -- one after the invitational at Lakeland, one after the invitational at Logansport, Ind., and, most importantly of all, one on Wednesday afternoon after scoring a perfect 90 at the state championship Saturday in Class 1. This was the 10th state championship in 11 years, said coach Peter De Kever. And with three perfect scores in the course of the season and 715 out of 720 words spelled correctly in the eight competitions, this team can make a case that it's the best they've ever had at Penn, he said. "I'm happy it worked out positively, and not see it wrecked by an odd missed word," he said. "It reflects the quality of work throughout the season." And that season started pretty early. Co-captains Matt DeGeyter and Michael Ogden, both seniors, said they've been studying the list of 3,300 words for months. Some of their biggest challenges were mastering words that ended in "-ant" or "-ent," those that had hyphens or spaces or were French or Latin words. "To be honest, I don't know if anyone else got 90 this season," Ogden said. "Certainly not at regional or state." But perfect scores are what they strive for all year. "That's what it takes to win state," De Kever said. While there are 17 students on the team this year, only 10 students are allowed to compete at a match. De Kever was impressed that their 10-member team at state included five freshmen. And that bodes well for next year. Members of the Penn High School Spell Bowl team are: freshmen Maaz Arif, Alex Cao, Austin Heckaman, Leah Hershberger, Jenny Huang, Marija Lapkus, Talia Qiao; sophomores Christy Chang, Welly Chang, Andrew Hsu, Yifei Hu, James McGinness, Sheena Shah; junior Wing Yan Kwong, and seniors Vanessa Cabello, Matt DeGeyter and Michael Ogden.